


The Greater Part of Life

by Tabithian



Series: Golden Thread [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The older Tim gets, the smaller that part of him. The one that thinks <i>maybe, maybe it's possible</i>, becomes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greater Part of Life

**Author's Note:**

> There was a [plot bunny](http://tabithian.tumblr.com/post/45844972146/after-watching-rise-of-the-guardians-again-i-was). And now there's this. *hands*

Tim never really believes in things like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. It was virtually impossible to grow up without hearing about them, though. From his nannies when he was younger, classmates from school when he was old enough. His parents never encouraged the belief in them.

He remembers once, when he was very young, asking his father if Santa Claus was real. His mother sighed and looked at his father, said, “You deal with this,” and walked away. 

Tim's father looked at Tim like he didn't know where to start, and Tim. He told his father about what the kids at school had said, how Santa had brought them the toy they'd asked for in the letter they sent him. How Santa filled their stockings with little toys and candy treats. Ate the cookies and milk they left out for him. 

Tim's father had sighed, and said, “He's not real, Tim.”

When Tim looked confused, he took Tim to his study and pulled out books with woodcut illustrations of Father Christmas. Saint Nicholas and Sinterklass. Told Tim how he was a figure out of folklore, that the stories had been merged together to create the Santa Clause most people knew. How an advertising company came up with the version of Santa Claus people envision when Santa Claus is mentioned. 

Tim knew better than to ask about the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny or Sandman after that. Any of the childhood icons because they couldn't be real.

But.

There was always a small part of him that thought _maybe_.

Because there were superheroes out there, weren't there. Superman and Batman. Wonder Woman and the Flash. Green Lantern and Aquaman. 

The older Tim gets, the smaller that part of him. The one that thinks _maybe, maybe it's possible_ , becomes. 

Santa Claus never brings him the thing he wants most for Christmas, even though there are presents under the tree. (His parents call to wish him a merry Christmas, which is better and worse in a way.)

When he discovered who Robin is, who _Batman_ is, Tim starts going out at night hoping to take pictures of them. 

He bundles up in when the cold weather starts, camera held close as he finds a spot to watch where he won't be noticed, won't be seen. 

There are nights when he's able to follow them for a while without being seen, without feeling like he's pressing his luck. And there are nights when he doesn't see them at all.

He doesn't really remember how it starts, but one night there's a gust of cold wind down his back and when he turns to see what caused it - 

There's nothing.

No one.

He thinks he imagined it, but a little while later it happens again, and he turns to look, but. 

Again, nothing.

He shakes his head and something hits his shoulder, pushing him forward a step. His hand comes up automatically, and he touches _snow_.

“What?”

Tim looks around, but he's alone on a rooftop. No one around but the stray cats that walk the rooftops.

“Did you do that?” he asks, feeling a little foolish, because it's a cat. A little on the skinny side, but still. A cat.

“Yeah, I didn't think so,” Tim says.

Still.

It's cold out, yes, but not cold enough for snow. 

Tim goes home early that night, itch between his shoulders.

He does research over the next few days. Superheroes and villains with powers and abilities to manipulate the weather or that are elementally based. He makes lists, charts, but none of it matches up. 

At school they watch a Rankin-Bass holiday special about Jack Frost and Tim. He _knows_ better, but.

Maybe.

The next time he ventures out to look for Batman and Robin he goes back to that rooftop.

There aren't any snowballs that night, but Tim takes a picture of the little patch of snow near the edge of the roof where he likes to watch from when Batman and Robin pass by on patrol. There are indents in the snow that could be from someone's hand.

Tim looks over to see the stray watching him with a baleful look in its eye. “You?” he asks.

The stray's ears twitch, but it doesn't answer.

Tim smiles when a gentle gust of wind knocks his hat off.

 _Maybe_.

********

Tim doesn't believe, not really.

But.

He talks. 

About school and the friends he's making – or thinks he is. It's more that they share similar interests and sometimes end up in a group during school hours, but. He's not really sure, and it's confusing and frightening and awful as much as it is just plain _nice_. (Less lonely.)

He talks about the trips his parents are on, bringing one of their letters with him when they write to him. Sometimes he'll bring books about the countries they're in, glossy pages with photographs of landmarks and forests and crowded marketplaces. Endless deserts and vast grass covered plains. 

It's easy enough to pretend the little blast of cold air when Tim's telling an awful joke is simply coincidence. Snow falling from the overhang of a roof when he feels down mere happenstance. (The snowballs when Tim's talking about practical things, keeping his grades up so he can get into a good college, taking over the family company, things he shouldn't be thinking about for years yet? Those are a little harder to explain away, so eventually Tim stops bothering.)

Most of the time there's a stray or two hanging around because Tim will share the food he brings on the nights he plans on being out longer than usual. He can pretend he's talking to them, telling them about his life. (He does that too, because it would be rude to pretend they aren't there after all.)

Every so often the wind will pick up, pushing and shoving until he pulls his jacket close and lets it guide him to some alley corner or hidden nook he hadn't seen. Sometimes it turns out to be a vantage point to watch Batman and Robin, better hidden, out of the worst of the wind. Other times it's something else entirely, like a stray that's gotten stuck and needs help to get free.

He finds a half-starved cat one night, abandoned in a pet carrier with the door still shut tight. The cat lifts its head when he crouches down to get a better look at it, eyes dull and listless.

“Hey,” he says, little surge of anger for someone who would do this. “Hold on for a little longer, okay?”

Tim can't take the cat in himself, although it's not as though his parents would notice, but. He knows some of the rooftops Catwoman likes to frequent, for the view or some other reason he can't begin to guess at.

He's dressed in layers that night, his jacket alone not enough to keep the biting chill out. He sacrifices a sweater to keep the cat warm and leaves it where Catwoman will be sure to find it. (Tim waits just to be sure, and for one terrible moment is certain she sees where he's hiding, but the cat lets out a pitiful meow and she deals with the more immediate issue.)

********

Things...change when Tim becomes Robin. (Of course they do.)

He can't explain to Bruce how the frost pictures on his bedroom window appear on certain days, occasions. (He knows about the cameras, Bruce.)

At first they weren't quite so easily deciphered, so distinctive. Like seeing shapes in the clouds on a sunny day.

 _This_ could be a tree with decorations and oddly shaped packages under the lowest branches. _That_ could be the misshapen cake Tim once tried to make himself on one of his birthdays when his parents were out of the country and the housekeeper had the day off. (This one, at least, doesn't collapse when Tim blows the candles out.)

It gets a little harder to dismiss when Tim comes back from his training abroad and wakes up the next morning to an image of a robin in the frost on his window. 

Bruce insists on test upon test afterward, suspecting some kind of latent meta gene, and Tim. Tim doesn't object because Batman needs a Robin and this is _important_.

He can't explain away the flurry of snow on a clear spring night when he's out patrolling with Dick, one perfect snowflake come to rest on the end of his nose.

“Oh, come on,” Dick mutters, looking up at the falling snow. “Tell me it's not Freeze.”

The 'again' goes unspoken, but. Tim wholeheartedly understands. 

“It's not,” he says. ”Freeze is in Arkham.”

Dick sends him a look, tired and a little amused. “That's what we always say,” he says, and yelps when a blast of cold air nudges him off the edge of the roof.

Tim leans over to look when Dick's whoop of delight reaches him along with a faint, “Come on, boy wonder!”

He pauses for a moment and allows himself a small smile _because_.

“Thanks,” he says, and follows Dick over the edge of the roof and across Gotham's rooftops.

********

Tim's holding his own against a couple of muggers well enough – until they tell two friends and they tell two friends. 

Backup is headed his way, but he has the feeling they might not get there in time. He probably shouldn't have gone on patrol at all, still recovering from a cold, but this – being Robin – is important. Important enough to convince Bruce he's well enough to go on patrol even though it's becoming glaringly obvious he isn't.

He doesn't see where the snowball comes from, just that it buys him time, space. He does a backflip to buy him more room, bo snapping around to take one of the goons trying to sneak up being him down. He hears bone-jarring crash and whirls to see another go down, hands slipping out from under when when he tries to get back up. (It's June, there shouldn't be snow _or_ ice.)

Cass and Bruce swoop in moments later and take out the rest of the group with Tim's help. 

He catches Bruce frowning at something on the ground as he takes out a sample jar from a pouch and scoops something inside.

Bruce scowls at him when he sees Tim looking, and sends Cass back on patrol.

“Roof, _now_ ,” Bruce growls, and launches a line expecting Tim to follow.

Tim sighs, looking around and says, “Thanks.”

The burst of cold air as he fires his grapple that brushes against his face gets a weary smile from him. (Probably the last one for a while, once Bruce is done talking to him.) 

********

They hear about Burgess once activity has died down.

Bruce frowns and grumbles. _Restless_.

He has security video footage that cuts out, turns to static before whatever happened took place. He has weather reports and satellite photos that couldn't penetrate the strange cloud formation that formed over the city. He has reports from less than reliable sources – town drunks and notable crazies. 

“UFO?” Dick asks, when Bruce glares at the pitch black cloud formation on one of the cave's computer screens. “Oh, Bigfoot?” he goes on, when Bruce pulls up a blurry photo taken from one of said town crazies.

“...Yeti,” Bruce admits reluctantly. “According to the source.”

“Right,” says Steph, pointing to another picture. “And next you're going to tell me that's the Easter Bunny.”

“Who?” Damian asks.

Tim chokes on his coffee when Dick and Steph's eyes light up and gets up to leave, holding a hand up. “No,” he says, “I want no part of this.”

There's no knowing if Damian knows who they're talking about, or if he's trying to get a little of his own back at them. Either way, Tim is going to stay out of it.

He feels Bruce watching him when he walks past, out of focus picture of a window with frost patterns that could be an egg with intricate designs on it on the computer screen.

********

Tim wakes up Easter morning to a frost robin on his bedroom window and Easter eggs in a basket on his windowsill. There's a little feather trapped between two of the eggs, iridescent, beautiful.

He doesn't believe, not really, but. 

For a brief moment, he thinks he sees something from the corner of his eye.

 _Maybe_.


End file.
